With a three-severed-heads-on-one example? I think you're the new President! "Coin stalking" is the reason many of us are poor or are in the doghouse with spouses . Steve shows a cool coin, then we all want one. Zumbly buys something few have seen... now we all scramble to find one of our own-- budget be damned. Etc. I coinstalk many people here on CoinTalk
As my 1st official duty I give you my word to be more of a Kennedy or wild Bill type President then the, uh, current admenstration... "I did not have severed relations with that gorgon."
Steve had a collection of the aegis/Nike coins by mint. (He had them all.) At one time I tried to get all of the mints for this related Athena/Perseus type. It turned out to be too hard -- there are some very rare coins! Here is a scarce one, from the Komana mint. NOT Amisos or Sinope. Komana isn't impossible to obtain -- there are three in acsearch.info -- but if you are waiting for a nice one it might take several lifetimes. Pontos, Komana, AE27 19.2g Helmeted head of Athena right. KOMA-[NΩN] Perseus standing, holding severed head of Medusa Ref: SNG Black Sea 1260-1
Welcome to CT and the Headless Medusa Club! You're definitely in with that one, I'd say! I had that coin on my watch list for a couple of weeks, but completely forgot about the auction on the day it was live. I love those multiple heads and am glad to see it went to someone in the CT family. I've been keeping my eye open for examples from the other mints, but you're right about them being hard to find! This one from Amastris isn't one of the rare ones, but I don't think one from this city has been posted in this thread yet. PAPHLAGONIA, Amastris Time of Mithradates VI AE29. 16.32g, 28.9mm. PAPHLAGONIA, Amastris. Struck under Mithradates VI, circa 105-85 BC. HGC 7, 357. O: Head of Athena in Attic helmet right. R: AMAΣ-TPEΩΣ, Perseus standing facing, holding harpa and head of Medusa, corpse at feet gushing blood from neck stump; monogram to left. Another Amisos that's found its way into my growing harem. PONTOS, Amisos Time of Mithradates VI AE28. 18.53g, 27.7mm. PONTOS, Amisos. Struck under Mithradates VI, circa 105-85 BC. HGC 7, 238. O: Head of Athena in Attic helmet right. R: AMI-ΣOY, Perseus standing facing, holding harpa and head of Medusa, corpse at feet gushing blood from neck stump; monogram to left and right.
Thanks for the welcome everyone! TIF yours has to be the most psychedelic coin I think I've ever seen, that being said the cleaning job turned out great on it! The obverse is one of my favourite of those that I've come across and the reverse manages to cram everything in just perfectly. I like this one on MA-shops but it's more than 3x the price of the one I bought (starting to think perhaps I didn't pay that much afterall) so not within my current budget: https://www.ma-shops.com/saenn/item.php5?id=4961&lang=en
The British Museum has examples for the mints of Cabeira (1 in acsearch), Chabacta (0 in acsearch), Pharnaceia (0 in acsearch), and Taulara (0 in acsearch).
The OP type is one I have wanted for at least a couple of years myself. I saw my first one on a CNG auction, but was after something else. So far I hve not found a pleasant example with a pleasant enough price to allow me to join the Headless Medusa Club, but I'm working on it.
For many years I thought it was impossible to get an example where Perseus' facial details can be seen. (@TIF 's example might have some details.) Here is an example that was struck off-angle allowing the flan to completely fill the details at the top of the die. Perseus, Medusa, and the Pegasos-on-helmet can be clearly seen. The bottom of the coin missed the die entirely.
Very cool. So I guess we all need at least two, right? One thing that puzzles me about mine & others with good detail on the body: Medusa is clearly carrying a weapon of some sort. Odd?
I picked up one of these but hadn't had a a chance to show it off yet, as far as I can remember. It's from Amisos. The style varies a lot, but rather than a weapon in hand that extra long line may be intended to represent the floor. You can see it a little on mine, but @TIF's post on the first page shows it even more distinctly, with Medusa's arm extending below the floor.
I thought so too at first but upon closer look, what I thought was a weapon held in Medusa's right hand (the upper hand on this coin) are instead details of Perseus's footwear, representing his winged sandals-- and what a great detail that is! Man... I'm really envious of this coin!
I know Z posted one of these and I have posted mine to some other thread on CT but not this one. Another Amastris: Of my headless Medusas, this is my best head (sadly).
I bought this Amisos mainly because I thought it was great there was some facial features left on Medusa's head, but @Severus Alexander's and @Ed Snible's both blow mine out of the water. And wow, Ed, facial details on Perseus... that's an even rarer thing! That said, even those terrific examples have something lacking that tells us that the perfect one has yet to be found, and to begin with, may not exist.
There was a very nice example sold about two months ago on eBay Germany for about $500 by Lanz. I wish I had saved a picture of it. Here is something I haven't shown before. I suspect it is an unpublished Scythian unofficial or semi-official imitation. Imitations are known for other coins of Mithradates but I was surprised to see one for something as large as this. Northern Black Sea area?, circa 95 BC? 25mm, 13.33g. Obv: Helmeted head of Athena right. Rev: Rev: Perseus standing facing, holding harpa and severed head of Medusa; headless body at feet; crude legend around. Athena. Don't get me started on those lips and the side-eye. The inscription is blundered and the letters have "ball terminals" with very large balls. Medusa's head looks like a clam. Unlike the delicate winged boots of Hades on @Severus Alexander 's example this one has crude foot lines that look like they were drawn by a kindergartner. Perseus himself looks like a Muppet with a mohawk.
I searched acsearch and found no examples with all of these headless body all on the flan some details of the medusa head some details of Perseus's head no double strike or surface "problems". If a really nice one showed up, I think a few of us might bid it up (now that we know how special a good one would be).